Afghanistan Is Silent, but Its Voices Are Still Alive in Our Hearts

When Afghanistan fell silent, its silence was heavier than the constant sound of war. 

The news carried only a few words: 

“The internet in Afghanistan has been cut off.” 

But those few words meant something far greater to millions, they were the severing of the last thread of hope,  the cutting off of the breath of connection to a world where a faint glimmer of hope still shone. 

On that day, my homeland did not breathe. 

A thick silence spread through the alleys, settled in the homes, and took root in people’s hearts, a silence that  smelled of exhaustion, despair, and longing. 

From afar, in exile, I stared at the dark screen of my phone; at a signal that no longer came, at a thin thread of  light running through cables and clouds that had connected me to my mother, to my family, to my homeland. 

When that thread snapped, the voices of thousands echoed in my mind voices that could no longer be heard by anyone. 

The voice of a girl whose online class was left unfinished, a young man whose livelihood depended on online  work and who was now unemployed, a mother who lost contact with her child on the path of migration, a  traveller wandering the dark roads between cities, not knowing how to reach loved ones, and a journalist who  did not know how to write about a world 

whose windows had all been closed. 

The internet blackout was not merely the loss of a signal for many, it meant the removal of bread from an  already empty table. 

In a country where work, education, and connection depend on those few hours of connectivity, every minute of  outage means hunger, loneliness, and fear. 

In some homes, when the internet went, hope left too. 

Afghanistan became a place that had held its breath. 

From this side of the world, I turned my phone on every moment in vain. 

No message, no sign of life. 

It was as if Afghanistan had been buried beneath the ash of silence. 

Exile at that moment was not merely distance; it was being cut off from the breath of home, from a voice that no  longer reached me.

Two days later, when service was restored, 

Afghanistan drew a fresh breath. 

People hurried to call, sent messages, heard each other’s voices not to report news, but simply to make sure they were alive. 

In a country where speaking is sometimes a crime, that brief call is a victory. 

But that brief blackout revealed deeper wounds: poverty, fear, despair, and isolation that take deeper root each  day. 

People who have spent years living amid war, darkness, and prohibitions, yet still carry a small flame in their  hearts a flame born of a woman who still writes, of a man who still gives hope, and of a girl who studies by candlelight, even when she does not know whether  the internet will be back tomorrow. 

Afghanistan may fall silent, but its silence is not the end of its voice. 

In every home, in every line, the story of survival continues. 

And I, from here, from exile, with every word I write, try to relight Afghanistan not with electricity, but with voice,  with memory, with hope. 

Yet sometimes I feel the world has forgotten Afghanistan. 

A world that once wept for it now passes by its suffering in silence. 

And Afghanistan, with all its pains 

with women whose voices have been stifled, with children who have no bread, 

and with people still searching for tomorrow in the dark whispers in its deep solitude: We are still alive...even if the world no longer hears our voice.